Customer Reviews

Pierre Toussaint: A Biography

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Born a slave 50 miles from Port-au-Prince in 1781, Pierre Toussaint's surname means "All Saints," and it seems likely that he celebrated his birthday on the Catholic Feast Day honoring "all saints," whether or not he was actually born on that day. His canonization "cause" in the Roman Catholic Church is in progress.

Interestingly, another black slave, also named Toussaint--called "L'Ouverture"--was a contemporary of Pierre's. He has gone down in history as the successful leader of a bloody slave revolt that helped make Haiti a state, and one from which all whites were expunged. This revolt followed upon the long dominance of a privileged and opportunistic French colonial planter society, and it preceded by just a few years, and resembled in its grisly horror, the Reign of Terror in France.

In subsequent years, when Pierre Toussaint had gone to live in New York and had become a freed man, he was asked if he was an Abolitionist, a subject about which he seemed to remain always circumspect, or, as Arthur Jones put it, "conflicted." In response to the question Pierre "shuddered and replied, ' Madame, they have never seen blood flow as I have.' "

While this biography is interesting as a re-creation of the unlikely life of an exceptional man who was an outstandingly devoted and learned Catholic person, it is also a compelling book of history about the unusually turbulent sociopolitical context in which his life takes place. Both in the early part of the story set in Haiti and in the later sojourn over the 50 years when Pierre dwelt in early New York City, the author cites historical resources that vividly bring alive to the reader's senses the two very different environments. As space for reviewing the book is limited here, I'll resist the temptation to quote some of the most evocative descriptive passages that stand out in my memory.

One other salient impression that this telling of Pierre's story leaves in my memory has to do with the Berard family members who owned Pierre up until the widow of Jean-Jacques Berard gave him his freedom in the early 1800s. They stand out as having been exceptional people of faith and good Catholics, too, in the planter society where those qualities were negligible and only superficially in evidence. They were people of intelligence who appreciated spiritual education, which they apparently passed on to some of their slaves. Clearly, they cared for the members of Pierre's family, house servants with whom they were in close association and whom they apparently held in affectionate esteem. Pierre shared a lifelong friendship in correspondence with his white mistress, Aurore, in whose lap he'd been placed as a baby, like a precious doll, since he was to become her personal servant.

As a freed man and successful coiffeur in New York, Pierre also developed close friendships with several other highly-placed white women, one of whom was the wife of Alexander Hamilton.

One of the things which touched me most in Pierre's story was the fact that while Pierre was still owned by J-J. Berard, during the most terrible times when everyone's lives and livelihoods in Haiti had become forfeit to the events of the revolution, Berard thought carefully about Pierre's future in life and told him that he wanted him to become apprenticed in New York as a coiffeur. This decision of his master Pierre willingly embraced, and it was to give him the means of a fairly prosperous livelihood by which he was able to support for a time two destitute female members of the Berard family, as well as members of his own family.

As a Catholic, Pierre partook of the more intellectual tastes of a Catholicism that was typical of France's "ancien regime." He was particularly inclined to read Bossuet and was apparently much influenced by him. Possibly it was Bossuet's openness to Protestantism that made Pierre accepting of Protestants and Protestant religious thought.

Hopefully, the few aspects I've focused on from this biography of Pierre will whet the curiosity of readers who think they might like to read at length about him and the times he lived through. If you turn to the book hoping to be edified by a hagiography, you won't be disappointed. He stands as a good example of a down-to-earth saint, an "All Saint," ordinary in lifestyle yet heroic. His life was unmarked by extraordinary mystical charisms or the oft-hallowed and highly vaunted choice of celibacy as being the holiest state in life. Pierre did marry and although he and his wife had no children of their own, they adopted Pierre's niece, whom they raised with great affection and enjoyment.

I'll close out by quoting just a bit of the author's summary about Pierre Toussaint:

"He was capable of rising above his slavery even when his Catholic Church and the society around him endorsed it. Despite the things he had to do to conform to society, he developed into a person constitutionally incapable of accepting many of the strictures of such a society or church--once he had decided on a course of action....He was not a loner, but he was certainly independent. He would lecture a white woman, a valued client, on her materialistic values. On his deathbed he would tell a visitor who offered to bring a priest to hear his confession that he confessed to God not to man. He could quote from Unitarian ministers as ably as he could the French Catholic clerics, or Scriptures whose writings he had early committed to memory. While nowhere is he on record as opposing slavery or working for its abolition, he helped countless people buy their way out of it. As an adult he supported numerous charities and endeavors when approached, but unless they were church-related, he joined no organizations....Everyone who met him for whom records remain was uniformly impressed by Toussaint....People in all ranks sought his counsel, and apparently took it. Yet this wasn't a stern, studious man or dour do-gooder; he wasn't officious, nor did he take himself seriously. He was funny, imaginative, and optimistic. And just as he never missed daily mass, so, apparently, he never lost a friend....The essence [of his core beliefs] was his Catholicism....His life's work, too, was marked by his public witness to his faith based on the beatitudes. He would quote, and did, from the Sermon on the Mount, for he lived by its precepts...."

The only flaws that I noticed in the book had to do with editorial failures, especially in that the author sometimes repeated the same point to redundance. I'm thinking especially of how in the early part of the book he stated more than twice that the planter society of Haiti was absolutely and unredeemedly opportunistic. Throughout the story, the author mentions over and over again that Pierre was always in danger of being kidnapped and sold into slavery whenever he went about the streets of New York. These are just the most outstanding among other lesser editorial flaws that I thought stood out noticeably, but this seems to me to be a feature of more and more books that I've read which have been published in the last 20-25 years. Who knows what's going on behind that trend?

If there was a grade of 4 ½ stars, I'd chose to give that grade to the book, but, as there isn't that choice, I'll go ahead and give it 5 stars, but I have some reservations about giving it that Total a degree of accolade.

This was a wonderful book, I was proud to read. As a Haitian-American I was excited to learn about a fellow countrymen who impacted society.